Diversions' Arts Picks

Must-see events in the Coastal Empire and Lowcountry for Jan. 19-26

Posted: Wednesday, January 18, 2006

Kids' poetry slam

An increasingly popular art form incorporating rap and hip-hop elements, poetry slams are verbal battles in which opponents use words as weapons. Gearing up for National Poetry Month in April, the Savannah-based Spitfire Poetry Group will host this weekend a bi-monthly spoken-word contest featuring 10 to 20 area schoolchildren competing in three divisions: elementary, middle and high school. Always surprising and inspiring, the subject matter is open, although the kids are required to keep their poems under three minutes in length. Judged by an audience of their peers on presentation, diction and clarity, winners in each category receive $75. There's a $10 registration fee for participants. Musical entertainment will be provided by The Cubes, a group of former Mercer Middle School students.

If you loved Giuseppe Tornatore's "Cinema Paradiso," which one critic hailed as the quintessential film for movie-lovers, there's a good chance you'll enjoy the filmmaker's "Pure Formality." Tornatore wrote the script, a post-existential thriller about a man (Gerard Depardieu) who is accused of a murder he doesn't remember committing. A fascinating web of deceptions, lies and manipulations is revealed during an unsettling interrogation of the accused. Director Roman Polanski plays the inspector. The shocking truth is ultimately revealed in the 1994 film, which plays for 108 minutes, in French with English subtitles. Presented by the Third Friday Foreign Cinema.